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Portland Harbour, Portland (by David Cumber)
The ship was a 14,150 ton, 380 ft armoured warship, which completly fills the harbour entrance from seawall to seawall. Unfortunatly, there were difficulties in sinking the ship and she ended completly upside down on the seabed, rather than upright. Shame really, but I guess the future wishes of divers weren't really taken in consideration, but it would have been an amazing dive if it had been upright. We were on the wreck and ready to dive at 9 o'clock. Bob had recommended this time due to slack water and with other dive groups in mind. The wreck can be dived during current, as you can sheild from the current behind the ship, but this is only really suitable for experienced divers as you can be blown off the wreck before you even get down by a current that can reach 5-6 knots! The timing was perfect, there were no other boats on the site as we descended, with just a sniff of a current. There is a mooring bouy near the wreck, which gives an excellent descent line. When you reach the bottom of the line at around 10-12M, there is another line that runs directly to the wreck (really good set up) and means you can't lose the wreck, even in really bad visability. And bad vis is what we had. There had been a force 6 gale in the preceding days to our visit, which had cut visability to between 1-2M. We found the bottom of the wreck to be on 16M.
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Portland
Harbour is based on the south coast, just a few miles from the town
of Weymouth.Wynemouth is a picturesque seaside town, with all the amenties
you would need. There is plenty of accomadation if you are planning
a night there, lots of B+B's and hotels, but make sure you book as the
town gets rammed during the summer. We were getting our boat ride from
Wynemouth harbour out to portland harbour. There are quite a few skippers,
who can be privatley hired for the day. We had our Rib hired for two
dives, and luckily had the Rib to ourselves. Now I have to say how impressed
I was with the skipper and boat we hired. Bob, who runs "Bluejacket",
was very friendly, helpful and knowlegable.He gave as all the information
we could possibly need. He gave full safety briefings, checked out our
diving experience levels (offering helpful advice on which sites were
suitable for us), and the boat was stocked to first class standard.
It was really due to him the day was as good as it was. We had a really
early start for our first dive on HMS Hood. The "Hood" was scuppered
across the southern entrance of Portland harbour in 1914. This was intentionally
done to protect ships in the harbour from any possible U-boat attacks,
during the first world war. 
The
bottom of the wreck is the most interesting, with lots of holes to have
a look through. We cruised from one end of the wreck to the other, and
then came up about 4-5M and cruised back along. At this depth there
is a walkway that runs the whole length of the ship and we followed
this back to our starting point. Bob said that the wreck is very easy
to penertrate and you could spend the whole dive inside, if you are
experienced enough. The wreck is huge and I could easliy see how this
was possible as we had a 45 min dive just along the length of her. After
we had turned round to return to our starting point, this was when we
saw the first of the many other divers that were now on the wreck. By
the time we reached the line again, we had ten's of divers on the wreck,
and with the vis as bad as it was chaos nearly ensued. At one point
we gained a diver to our group, who had mistaken us for his group. I
guess the morale is, get there early to get the best dive. As for fishlife,
we saw little on the wreck apart from the odd crab (although they were
a good size), but this was mostly due to the vis. On the line to the
wreck which runs over some of the blocks that form the sea wall, we
saw some Blennies and a few Pollock. I would return to this wreck, as
with good vis I think it would a cracker. 
We
returned to Wynemouth, filled up the tanks, had a bite to eat and a
quick talk with Bob about the second dive. Due to the vis he recommended
where to go for the second dive. We decided on White Noath, which lies
along the coast, east of Wynemouth harbour. We decided on this as we
hoped the vis would be better as it was more sheltered, and would be
a quieter dive site for the number of divers. A ten minute boat ride
later, we were on the site without a another boat in sight. This site
is a nice piece of reef that can be dived at several different depths.
There are three plateus that come of the coast line. The reef descends
from the coastline to around 8-10M, flattens out for a few hundred meters,
decends down again to 12-14M, flattens again for a few hundred meters,
descends again to 16+M. We dived the 12-14M region. A slight current
on the descent required us to stay as a tight group, as the vis (although
improved to 2-3M) meant you could easily split up. We had no descent
line and dropped directly onto the reef. The reefs are to long to drop
on the shallow reef and then swim out to the deeper parts, you would
spend the whole dive just trying to get deeper. In general the reef
was very nice. All along the reef there we little overhangs, which crabs
were hiding under. Numerous purple anenome, the odd wrasse and pollock
and the best find was a 9 inch pipefish. The fishlife wasn't prolific,
but there was enough to see. I don't really understand why no-one else
was diving it, everyone else seemed fixated on diving the local wrecks,
but it made for a better dive for us.